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Jesus_ Most Powerful Parables Explained _ You Need to See This · truthunedited

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Speaker 1: For 2,000 years, the parables of Jesus have been the
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Speaker 1: most powerful words ever spoken, but they were never meant
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Speaker 1: to be safe stories. They were an ambush for the
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Speaker 1: human heart. Jesus told them so that people would judge
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Speaker 1: the sinner and the unfaithful servant, then realize the story
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Speaker 1: had been about them all along. We turn these parables
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Speaker 1: into fables, good advice, easy lessons that ask nothing of us,
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Speaker 1: But Jesus used them to break through your defenses and
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Speaker 1: expose what you'd rather keep hidden. Most people hear these
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Speaker 1: stories and cast themselves as the hero, the good soil,
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Speaker 1: the faithful servant. They do not realize they may be
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Speaker 1: the older brother outside the celebration or the Pharisee praying
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Speaker 1: to himself. That is not an accident. That is what
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Speaker 1: these seven parables do. Two thousand years later, they have
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Speaker 1: not lost their aim. Before this ends, one of them
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Speaker 1: will find you. You will never read these stories the
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Speaker 1: same way again. Let's find out which one it is.
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Speaker 1: Parable 1. The Soar. Some of you watching this know
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Speaker 1: the Bible well. You can name the parables. You have
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Speaker 1: taught them. You have probably explained this one. And somewhere
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Speaker 1: underneath all of that knowledge, there is a growing distance
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Speaker 1: between what you know and how you live. This parable
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Speaker 1: is for you. Mark chapter 4 verse 13. Jesus asks
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Speaker 1: his disciples a single question that governs every parable he
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Speaker 1: ever told. If you don't understand this parable, how will
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Speaker 1: you understand any of them? This is the master key,
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Speaker 1: the one that opens all the others. The disciples come
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Speaker 1: to him privately with a different question. Why parables? Why
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Speaker 1: not just speak plainly? Jesus answers with a Greek word, heina.
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Speaker 1: It means so that. A word of purpose. The parables
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Speaker 1: were not simply a teaching method. They were a judicial act,
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Speaker 1: revealing to those coming closer, confirming the blindness of those
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Speaker 1: already turned away. The parable is not just a message.
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Speaker 1: The parable is a test, and the response to it
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Speaker 1: reveals the condition of the hearer. The agricultural piece most
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Speaker 1: readers miss is this. Farmers in first-century Palestine sowed before
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Speaker 1: they plowed. That was standard practice, recorded in the Mishnah.
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Speaker 1: The farmer was not careless when seed fell on hardened
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Speaker 1: paths or rocky ground. He was doing exactly what every
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Speaker 1: farmer did, which means the seed is identical in every field.
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Speaker 1: The method is identical. The only variable is the condition
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Speaker 1: of the soil that receives it, and that hundredfold yield
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Speaker 1: in the good soil is not accidental. Normal harvests were
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Speaker 1: 5 to 15 times what was planted. Hundredfold Echoes, Genesis
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Speaker 1: chapter 26. The language of divine blessing, not normal agriculture.
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Speaker 1: Jesus is describing transformation, not improvement. Now here is the
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Speaker 1: honest word. There is a particular kind of hardness that
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Speaker 1: comes from knowing the parable too well. The path in
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Speaker 1: this story is not just the person who has never heard.
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Speaker 1: It can be the person who has heard so many
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Speaker 1: times the word bounces off before it sinks in. Some
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Speaker 1: of you have become very good at engaging with Scripture
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Speaker 1: without being changed by it. You process it. You discuss it.
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Speaker 1: You share it. And you walk away the same way
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Speaker 1: you arrived. That is not learning. That is the path.
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Speaker 1: And you feel it. That gap between what you believe
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Speaker 1: and how you live. You feel it. You just have
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Speaker 1: not known what to call it. The four soils are
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Speaker 1: not four types of other people. They are four conditions
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Speaker 1: your heart can be in, sometimes simultaneously, in different areas
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Speaker 1: of your life. Rocky Ground received the word with joy.
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Speaker 1: Faith that lasted until the first real cost revealed, there
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Speaker 1: was no root. This is not the person who rejected faith.
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Speaker 1: It is the person who embraced it and then found
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Speaker 1: out it was more expensive than they expected. Thorny ground
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Speaker 1: is the word choked, not by dramatic rejection, but by
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Speaker 1: the accumulation of ordinary things, worry, ambition, the relentless noise
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Speaker 1: of a full life. What is choking the word in
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Speaker 1: your life right now? Not in principle. right now. Name it.
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Speaker 1: The soil can change. That is what this parable is
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Speaker 1: actually about. The parable does not end with the poor soil.
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Speaker 1: It ends with the hundredfold harvest, a yield that is supernatural,
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Speaker 1: not natural. Jesus is not describing where most people stay.
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Speaker 1: He is describing where what becomes possible when the soil
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Speaker 1: is prepared. You can be different soil, not by willpower,
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Speaker 1: by bringing what is actually in your soil to the
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Speaker 1: one who can change it. The hardened path can be
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Speaker 1: broken open, the stones can be removed, the thorns can
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Speaker 1: be cleared. This is the invitation. Stop processing this parable
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Speaker 1: and let it process you. Ask what your soil actually is,
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Speaker 1: right now, today, and bring that honest answer to the
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Speaker 1: one who planted the seed, not the answer you want
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Speaker 1: your soil to be, the answer that is actually true.
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Speaker 1: You now have a question about your own soil. The
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Speaker 1: next parable shows you what the father does the moment
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Speaker 1: his son starts the walk home and raises a harder question.
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Speaker 1: what do you do when you realize you have been
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Speaker 1: faithfully serving outside the feast the whole time parable 2
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Speaker 1: the prodigal son there are two types of people in
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Speaker 1: this story some of you know immediately which one you
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Speaker 1: are and some of you are about to discover that
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Speaker 1: you have been the wrong one your whole life a
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Speaker 1: man had two sons the younger came to him and
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Speaker 1: said give me my share of the estate In first-century
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Speaker 1: Middle Eastern culture, that was not a financial request. It
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Speaker 1: was a public declaration equivalent to saying, I wish you
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Speaker 1: were dead. The father had every legal right to refuse, disinherit,
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Speaker 1: and publicly shame the son. He divided the estate instead.
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Speaker 1: This is the first act of grace in the parable,
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Speaker 1: and almost no one notices it. Before the boy has
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Speaker 1: failed— Before he has repented, before he has done anything
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Speaker 1: but insult his father in front of the village, the
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Speaker 1: father chooses to be dishonored rather than to protect his
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Speaker 1: own standing. The son leaves. goes to a far country,
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Speaker 1: squanders everything, a famine comes, he hires himself out to
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Speaker 1: a Gentile farmer feeding pigs, the lowest point conceivable for
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Speaker 1: a Jewish listener, he decides to return, not as a son,
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Speaker 1: he knows that ground is gone, he will return as
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Speaker 1: a hired servant, and he rehearses a speech on the
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Speaker 1: road home,' Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you,
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Speaker 1: I am no longer worthy to be called your son,'
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Speaker 1: a carefully calculated survival plan, and what happens next overturns
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Speaker 1: the calculation completely. While he was still a long way off,
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Speaker 1: his father saw him. The father was watching the road.
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Speaker 1: He had been watching, probably every day, and when he
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Speaker 1: saw the silhouette in the distance, he did something no
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Speaker 1: man of his position did in that culture. He ran.
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Speaker 1: To run, an elder had to hitch up his long
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Speaker 1: outer robes, exposing his legs, which was deeply undignified. He
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Speaker 1: made himself look shameful in front of the entire village
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Speaker 1: to reach his son before the village did. Before the
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Speaker 1: apology was finished, the robe was on the son's shoulders,
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Speaker 1: sandals on his feet, and a ring on his finger.
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Speaker 1: The robe was honor publicly restored. The sandals were sonship declared,
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Speaker 1: because servants went barefoot, And the ring was not jewelry.
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Speaker 1: It was a signet ring, a legal instrument used to
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Speaker 1: seal documents and conduct family business on the owner's behalf.
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Speaker 1: Power of attorney. Before the son has finished his speech,
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Speaker 1: he can act as the father's representative again. The feast begins,
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Speaker 1: but the parable is not finished. Now, here is where
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Speaker 1: the harder word comes in. Some of you watching this
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Speaker 1: are in the far country right now. You know it.
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Speaker 1: You have been making excuses for how long you have
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Speaker 1: been gone. And you are rehearsing a speech, something that
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Speaker 1: sounds humble but is actually just a calculated approach to re-entry.
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Speaker 1: Stop rehearsing. He is watching the road. And he will
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Speaker 1: run before you finish the sentence. But some of you,
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Speaker 1: and this is the harder word, are the older brother.
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Speaker 1: You have never left. You have served faithfully. You have
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Speaker 1: shown up, given, sacrificed. And somewhere in all of that service,
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Speaker 1: you stopped doing it out of love and started doing
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Speaker 1: it out of expectation. You began keeping a record of
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Speaker 1: what you gave, what you earned, what you deserve. And
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Speaker 1: when grace went to someone who had not kept a record,
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Speaker 1: something in you did not celebrate. The older brother in
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Speaker 1: the story is in the field. he hears the music,
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Speaker 1: he refuses to enter, and when the father comes out
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Speaker 1: to plead with him, listen to what he says. I
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Speaker 1: have never disobeyed your command. You never gave me even
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Speaker 1: a young goat. But when this son of yours comes back,
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Speaker 1: you kill the fattened calf. This son of yours, not
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Speaker 1: my brother. He has reduced his relationship with his father
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Speaker 1: to compliance. He has been working for a wage he
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Speaker 1: never named, and he is furious it never came. There
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Speaker 1: is a version of faithfulness that is resentment wearing obedience's clothes.
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Speaker 1: Now hear what the father says back, Son, you are
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Speaker 1: always with me, and everything I have is yours. The
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Speaker 1: father does not offer the older son more. He reminds
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Speaker 1: him that he already has everything. The older son was
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Speaker 1: never locked out. He locked himself out. The parable ends
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Speaker 1: without telling us if the older brother went in, because
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Speaker 1: the older brother is the person still deciding, and Jesus
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Speaker 1: is waiting. If you are in the far country, come home.
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Speaker 1: You do not need to finish the speech. He will
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Speaker 1: see you while you are still a long way off,
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Speaker 1: and he will run. If you are outside the feast,
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Speaker 1: the music is still playing. The Father has left his
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Speaker 1: own table to stand outside with you. He is not
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Speaker 1: asking you to earn your place. He is reminding you
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Speaker 1: that you already have one. You can walk in right now,
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Speaker 1: not after you have sorted through your resentment, not after
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Speaker 1: you have resolved the ledger, right now. In whatever state
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Speaker 1: you are in, the door is open, the feast is yours.
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Speaker 1: The father ran to reach his son before the village did.
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Speaker 1: The next parable confronts someone who was on the receiving
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Speaker 1: end of that kind of impossible generosity and immediately sees
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Speaker 1: someone else by the throat. Watch what he actually asked.
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Speaker 1: Parable 3 The Unforgiving Servant Matthew 18-21 Peter comes to
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Speaker 1: Jesus with a question. Lord, how many times shall I
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Speaker 1: forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to
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Speaker 1: seven times. Seven was above the rabbinical suggested limit. Peter
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Speaker 1: thought he was being generous. He has named himself. He
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Speaker 1: is in the room asking about forgiveness. Jesus says, not seven.
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Speaker 1: 77 times. Then he tells a parable aimed directly at
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Speaker 1: the man who just asked. The kingdom of heaven, he says,
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Speaker 1: is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with
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Speaker 1: his servants. One servant is brought forward. He owes 10,000 talents. Josephus,
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Speaker 1: The first century Jewish historian records that the total annual
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Speaker 1: tax revenue of Herod the Great's entire kingdom was approximately
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Speaker 1: 900 to 1,000 talents per year. 10,000 talents was 10
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Speaker 1: times the annual revenue of the entire Herodian kingdom. One
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Speaker 1: talent equaled roughly 20 years of wages for a common laborer. 10,000 talents, 200,000
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Speaker 1: years of wages. A number Jesus chose specifically because it
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Speaker 1: is mathematically impossible. Because the debt it represents is impossible.
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Speaker 1: The king orders the man sold into debt slavery. Standard
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Speaker 1: Roman practice. The servant falls on his knees. Have patience
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Speaker 1: with me and I will repay everything. The promise is absurd.
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Speaker 1: But the king does not simply grant patience. He cancels
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Speaker 1: the entire debt. All of it. The servant walks out free.
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Speaker 1: And on his way home, he finds a fellow servant
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Speaker 1: who owes him 100 denarii, three and a half months wages,
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Speaker 1: a real debt, but entirely repayable within a lifetime. He
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Speaker 1: grabs him by the throat. The fellow servant falls on
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Speaker 1: his knees and uses the identical words the first servant
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Speaker 1: used before the king. Have patience with me and I
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Speaker 1: will repay you. The first servant refuses. He has him
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Speaker 1: thrown into prison. The ratio between the two debts, 600,000
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Speaker 1: to 1. You have not forgiven someone. You know exactly
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Speaker 1: who I mean. The name came to you the moment
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Speaker 1: you heard that ratio. This parable is the most important
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Speaker 1: thing you will hear today. Now, the honest word. Unforgiveness
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Speaker 1: has a texture. It is not neutral. It lives in
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Speaker 1: you as a tightness, a place you return to when
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Speaker 1: you are tired. When something reminds you, when you hear
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Speaker 1: their name, a place where the story replays, where you
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Speaker 1: rehearse what you should have said, where the wrong done
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Speaker 1: to you stays fresh no matter how long ago it happened,
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Speaker 1: you have probably told yourself you have mostly forgiven, that
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Speaker 1: you have moved on. But there is a cell with
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Speaker 1: their name on it in your mind, and every so
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Speaker 1: often you check to make sure they are still in it.
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Speaker 1: This parable is asking you to look honestly at that cell.
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Speaker 1: The servant's behavior in this story is not just morally wrong,
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Speaker 1: it is structurally insane. A man who has just had
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Speaker 1: an impossible debt erased walks out and immediately seizes someone
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Speaker 1: by the throat over a repayable sum. This is what
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Speaker 1: unforgiveness looks like from the outside. From the inside, it
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Speaker 1: always feels justified. The debt is real. The wrong was real.
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Speaker 1: The pain is real. Jesus is not minimizing what was
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Speaker 1: done to you. He is showing you the ratio. And
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Speaker 1: he is asking you to look at it honestly. Unforgiveness
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Speaker 1: does not punish the person who wronged you. They may
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Speaker 1: not even know the prison exists. It punishes you. And
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Speaker 1: according to this parable, it seals the very mercy that
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Speaker 1: was given to you. The king in this parable is
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Speaker 1: the most lavish figure in any of Jesus' stories. He
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Speaker 1: does not set a payment plan. He does not negotiate.
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Speaker 1: He cancels everything immediately, without conditions, moved by compassion. That
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Speaker 1: is the character of the one you owe, not a
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Speaker 1: hard creditor-keeping score. A king who, when you fell on
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Speaker 1: your knees with an impossible debt, cancelled all of it.
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Speaker 1: Forgiveness is not saying what was done to you was acceptable.
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Speaker 1: It is releasing the debt, opening the cell. not for
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Speaker 1: their sake, for yours. And because the king who cancelled
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Speaker 1: your impossible debt is asking you to, you can release
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Speaker 1: it right now. You probably do not feel ready. You
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Speaker 1: will not feel ready. Release it anyway. Not because the
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Speaker 1: feeling has changed, because the ratio is real, and because
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Speaker 1: the door to your own freedom is on the other
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Speaker 1: side of the cell you are holding shut. Peter named
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Speaker 1: himself in that question, and Jesus aimed the unforgiving servant
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Speaker 1: directly at him, about forgiveness. But the parable we have
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Speaker 1: been tracking is about something different, a disciple calculating what
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Speaker 1: he was owed. That parable is still coming, and before
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Speaker 1: it does, the darkest story Jesus ever told, about a
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Speaker 1: man who had a name the whole time and rarely
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Speaker 1: used it. Parable 4 The Rich Man and Lazarus There
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Speaker 1: is a Lazarus at your gate, not a stranger on
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Speaker 1: a road, someone specific, someone you see regularly, someone whose
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Speaker 1: situation you are aware of, and you have done nothing,
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Speaker 1: not because you are cruel, because the gap between knowing
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Speaker 1: and acting is one of the widest gaps in the
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Speaker 1: human heart. This parable is for that gap. jesus begins
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Speaker 1: the story with a specific choice there was a rich
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Speaker 1: man no name and a beggar named lazarus he has
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Speaker 1: a name across every parable jesus told in all four
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Speaker 1: gospels lazarus is the only invented character given a proper
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Speaker 1: name every other figure is a certain man a king
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Speaker 1: a woman in ancient storytelling the named character is the
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Speaker 1: one with dignity the one who matters. Before the first
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Speaker 1: scene has played out, Jesus has told you who this
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Speaker 1: parable is about, and the name itself is loaded, Lazarus,
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Speaker 1: from the Hebrew Eliezer. It means God is my help.
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Speaker 1: He had no human help. His name was his entire theology.
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Speaker 1: The one thing he had, the world could not see.
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Speaker 1: The rich man wore purple and fine linen. He feasted
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Speaker 1: every single day. At his gate lay Lazarus, covered in sores,
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Speaker 1: longing for the scraps that fell from the rich man's table.
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Speaker 1: Dogs came and licked his wounds. The word for gate
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Speaker 1: here means the entrance to the property. Every time the
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Speaker 1: rich man left his house or returned to it, same man,
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Speaker 1: same gate, every day of his life. We have all
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Speaker 1: developed a sophisticated system for managing the distance between our
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Speaker 1: awareness and our action. We see, we feel something, we
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Speaker 1: categorize it, we file it under someone else will handle this,
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Speaker 1: or I will do something about this later. And later
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Speaker 1: never comes. This is not cruelty. It is the ordinary
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Speaker 1: human mechanism for protecting ourselves from the weight of every
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Speaker 1: need we encounter. But in this parable, Jesus calls it
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Speaker 1: by its name. The rich man knew Lazarus's name the
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Speaker 1: whole time. He simply never used it while it could
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Speaker 1: still help him. We know he knew it because he
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Speaker 1: uses it later in eternity. when it is too late
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Speaker 1: to matter. He does not say, send that beggar. He says,
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Speaker 1: send Lazarus. He knew. He had always known. The failure
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Speaker 1: was not ignorance. It was indifference. And indifference feels much
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Speaker 1: more comfortable than cruelty, which is exactly why it is
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Speaker 1: so dangerous. Both men die. Lazarus is carried by angels
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Speaker 1: to Abraham's side. In Jewish understanding of the afterlife, This
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Speaker 1: was the seat of highest honor at the patriarch's table.
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Speaker 1: The rich man is buried and finds himself in torment.
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Speaker 1: He looks up, sees Abraham in the distance, sees Lazarus
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Speaker 1: at Abraham's side, the same proximity, reversed. Father Abraham, have
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Speaker 1: mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip
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Speaker 1: of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because
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Speaker 1: I am in agony in this fire. He uses the
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Speaker 1: name now, now that it can no longer change anything.
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Speaker 1: Abraham answers, Son, remember that in your lifetime you received
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Speaker 1: your good things, while Lazarus received bad things. Now he
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Speaker 1: is comforted here, and you are in agony. And between
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Speaker 1: us and you, a great chasm has been fixed, so
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Speaker 1: that no one can cross over. The rich man asks
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Speaker 1: one more thing, that Lazarus be sent to his father's
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Speaker 1: house to warn his five brothers. Abraham says, They have
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Speaker 1: Moses and the prophets, let them listen to them. The
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Speaker 1: rich man presses, No, father Abraham. But if someone from
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Speaker 1: the dead goes to them, they will repent. And Abraham
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Speaker 1: delivers the most chilling line in any parable Jesus ever told.
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Speaker 1: If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets,
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Speaker 1: they will not be convinced, even if someone rises from
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Speaker 1: the dead. This parable was told before the resurrection. Jesus
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Speaker 1: would rise from the dead within months. The religious leader's response,
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Speaker 1: according to Matthew 28, was to bribe the guards to
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Speaker 1: lie about what had happened. The parable predicted its own reception,
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Speaker 1: and it proved accurate within the year. The barrier to
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Speaker 1: transformation in this parable was not lack of evidence. It
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Speaker 1: was condition of heart. A hardened heart interprets grace as
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Speaker 1: a threat, not an invitation. Hear this line carefully. You
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Speaker 1: are watching this on the only side of the chasm
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Speaker 1: where the gate can still be opened. That side. Right now.
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Speaker 1: The chasm has not been fixed yet. The gate is
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Speaker 1: still there. The name is still known. There is still
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Speaker 1: time to use the name, to cross the distance, to
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Speaker 1: stop in front of the gate you have walked past.
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Speaker 1: Not because it earns you anything. Because the person whose
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Speaker 1: name you know was placed there and you were placed
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Speaker 1: where you are for a reason, see them while you
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Speaker 1: still can. Reach through. While the chasm can still be crossed,
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Speaker 1: do it today, not later. Today. The rich man had
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Speaker 1: the name the whole time and never once used it
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Speaker 1: while he could still help. What comes next is the
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Speaker 1: parable we have been tracking from the very beginning. You
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Speaker 1: know what the disciple asked, you know what the topic is,
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Speaker 1: and when you hear Peter's exact words before Jesus told
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Speaker 1: this story, you will understand why it was the most
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Speaker 1: offensive answer Jesus ever gave to a sincere question. Parable 5.
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Speaker 1: Workers in the Vineyard. This is the one, not the
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Speaker 1: unforgiving servant. This one. Matthew chapter 19 verse 27. Peter,
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Speaker 1: out loud, in front of Jesus, we have left everything
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Speaker 1: to follow you, what then will we get? Matthew chapter
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Speaker 1: 20 verse 1 begins with the Greek word gar, meaning for,
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Speaker 1: a direct grammatical connection to what came before. The parable
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Speaker 1: is not a new subject, it is the direct answer
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Speaker 1: to the man who just asked about his reward, and
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Speaker 1: it is the most offensive parable Jesus ever told. The
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Speaker 1: kingdom of heaven, he says, is like a landowner who
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Speaker 1: went out early in the morning to hire workers for
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Speaker 1: his vineyard. Day laborers gathered at the marketplace from dawn,
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Speaker 1: displaced smallholders, men whose family's survival depended on being hired
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Speaker 1: each single day. He hires workers at dawn. They agree
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Speaker 1: on a denarius, the standard daily wage. He returns at nine,
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Speaker 1: at noon, at three, and at five. At five, one
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Speaker 1: hour before the working day ends, he finds men still
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Speaker 1: standing there. Why have you been standing here all day?
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Speaker 1: Because no one has hired us. They were not lazy.
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Speaker 1: They had been at the marketplace since dawn, watching every
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Speaker 1: other landowner come and leave without them. They were the
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Speaker 1: last chosen. He hires them for the last hour. At
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Speaker 1: day's end, the landowner pays from last to first. One
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Speaker 1: hour of work, a full denarius. The all-day workers see
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Speaker 1: this and recalculate. They receive a denarius. They are furious.
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Speaker 1: You have made them equal to us who have borne
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Speaker 1: the burden of the day and the heat. The landowner answers, Friend,
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Speaker 1: I am not being unfair. Didn't you agree to a denarius?
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Speaker 1: Or is your eye evil because I am generous? That
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Speaker 1: last phrase in Greek is poneros ophthalmos, the evil eye.
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Speaker 1: A documented Jewish idiom found in Proverbs chapter 28 and
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Speaker 1: the Sermon on the Mount. It named a resentful, stingy
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Speaker 1: spirit that could not bear to see unearned grace go
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Speaker 1: to someone else. Jesus is not just noting that the
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Speaker 1: workers were unhappy. He is naming a spiritual disease and
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Speaker 1: delivering the diagnosis directly to the man in the room
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Speaker 1: who had just asked about his reward. Someone's restoration has
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Speaker 1: bothered you. They left. They wasted everything. They came back
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Speaker 1: and were welcomed. And something in you registered that as unfair,
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Speaker 1: that something has a name now. It is the evil eye.
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Speaker 1: Now hear the honest word. The evil eye is not
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Speaker 1: anger about injustice done to you. The all-day workers received
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Speaker 1: every penny they were promised. Their fury was entirely about
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Speaker 1: someone else receiving more than they had calculated they deserved.
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Speaker 1: There is a version of this in most of us.
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Speaker 1: A quiet resentment that activates when we see grace go
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Speaker 1: to the undeserving. When someone who did less receives the same.
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Speaker 1: When someone who left comes back and is celebrated. It
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Speaker 1: feels like justice, but Jesus names it as a disease,
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Speaker 1: a spiritual condition that will make grace feel like an
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Speaker 1: insult every time it goes somewhere other than where you
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Speaker 1: calculated it should go. Peter's question, what will we get,
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Speaker 1: is the question of a man building a ledger. It
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Speaker 1: sounded sincere, it was sincere, but Jesus answered it with
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Speaker 1: a parable that exposes what the ledger does to a person.
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Speaker 1: This parable ends open, same as the prodigal son, because
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Speaker 1: the one who needs to answer is not in the story.
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Speaker 1: You are. Now hear the deeper thing. The landowner's generosity
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Speaker 1: is not an insult to the workers who started at dawn.
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Speaker 1: It is a revelation of his character. He does not
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Speaker 1: give according to merit. He gives according to his own heart.
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Speaker 1: And that same heart is what you are in relationship with.
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Speaker 1: The men hired at five in the afternoon had stood
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Speaker 1: in the marketplace all day, passed over, last chosen, and
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Speaker 1: they received a full day's wage, not because they earned it,
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Speaker 1: but because the landowner could not go home without coming
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Speaker 1: back for them. Your faithfulness is not wasted, but it
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Speaker 1: is not a ledger. It is a relationship. And in
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Speaker 1: this relationship, what you receive is not measured by how
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Speaker 1: long you served. It is given by a God whose
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Speaker 1: generosity is an expression of his character, not your performance.
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Speaker 1: You can put down the ledger right now. The accounts
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Speaker 1: are not kept the way you have been keeping them.
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Speaker 1: Grace is not rationed, and your neighbor's portion does not
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Speaker 1: reduce yours. Peter's ledger was exposed. Two parables remain before
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Speaker 1: the mirror. And the next one is two prayers, in
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Speaker 1: the same temple on the same day. One of them
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Speaker 1: was talking to himself the whole time, and one short
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Speaker 1: sentence from the other one will stay with you long
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Speaker 1: after this ends. Parable 6. The Pharisee and the Tax Collector.
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Speaker 1: Luke 18.9 Jesus tells this parable to those who were
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Speaker 1: confident of their own righteousness and and look down on
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Speaker 1: everyone else. He names the audience before he names the characters.
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Speaker 1: Two men go up to the temple to pray. Luke
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Speaker 1: chapter 18 verse 11 is textually specific about what happens next.
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Speaker 1: It says, The Pharisee prayed pros hyouton, to himself. The
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Speaker 1: Greek is explicit. His prayer never arrived anywhere except back
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Speaker 1: to him. He was performing for an audience of one. God,
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Speaker 1: I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, evildoers, adulterers,
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Speaker 1: or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week.
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Speaker 1: I give a tenth of all I get. The form
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Speaker 1: of this prayer had documented parallels in Jewish liturgy of
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Speaker 1: the period. The Babylonian Talmud preserves morning blessings with a
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Speaker 1: structurally similar shape, thanksgiving for what one is not. His
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Speaker 1: audience would have recognized the form and nodded at every line.
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Speaker 1: The tax collector stood at a distance. He would not
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Speaker 1: lift his eyes to heaven. He beat his chest, one
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Speaker 1: short sentence. God, have mercy on me, a sinner. The
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Speaker 1: Greek word for mercy here is hilastheti. It means propitiation, atonement.
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Speaker 1: He is not asking God to feel sorry for him.
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Speaker 1: He is asking God to provide covering for sin. two
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Speaker 1: entirely different requests dressed in the same posture. You have
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Speaker 1: a faith life that has quietly become about you. You
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Speaker 1: did not mean for this to happen, but somewhere in
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Speaker 1: the middle of it, without noticing, you stopped talking to
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Speaker 1: God and started talking to yourself. One of these two
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Speaker 1: men in the temple is a picture of that. This
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Speaker 1: parable is for that moment. Now hear the honest word.
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Speaker 1: Some of us have a well-developed faith life, that has
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Speaker 1: quietly become about us, we pray, we serve, we show up,
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Speaker 1: and we use our faithfulness, not consciously, not maliciously, as
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Speaker 1: evidence that we are the kind of person we want
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Speaker 1: to be. The Pharisee was not a fraud. He fasted
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Speaker 1: twice a week. He tithed everything. These were real practices,
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Speaker 1: but he turned them into credentials, and credentials require an audience.
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Speaker 1: When was the last time you prayed something that cost
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Speaker 1: you your self-image? When was the last time you came
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Speaker 1: to God with nothing to present? The Pharisee walked into
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Speaker 1: the temple and talked to himself for ten minutes. It
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Speaker 1: looked like prayer. It sounded like prayer. It was not prayer.
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Speaker 1: The tax collector could not present credentials. He presented himself
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Speaker 1: as he was, without argument, without comparison, without mitigation. The
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Speaker 1: most powerful prayer in this video has no adjectives. Not
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Speaker 1: a sinner who is improving. Not a sinner, but I
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Speaker 1: have good reasons. Just a sinner. And he walked home justified. Justified.
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Speaker 1: Declared righteous. The full legal weight of acquittal applied to
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Speaker 1: a man who came with nothing except an honest acknowledgement
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Speaker 1: of what he was. You do not need more credentials.
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Speaker 1: You need less pretense. The tax collector's prayer is available
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Speaker 1: to you right now. One short sentence. No qualifications, no performance. God,
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Speaker 1: have mercy on me, a sinner. That is enough. It
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Speaker 1: was enough then. It is enough now. It will always
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Speaker 1: be enough. The tax collector came with nothing and left
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Speaker 1: with everything. The final parable gives the last verdict. It
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Speaker 1: is not about failure. It is about what happens when
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Speaker 1: fear is mistaken for faithfulness. And there is something you
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Speaker 1: have buried that this parable is going to name. Parable 7.
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Speaker 1: The Talents A master prepares to travel to a distant country.
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Speaker 1: Before he leaves, he calls three of his servants and
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Speaker 1: entrusts his wealth to them. Five talents to one, two
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Speaker 1: to another, one to the third. Even the servant given
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Speaker 1: only one talent is holding more than twenty years of
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Speaker 1: wages for a common laborer. The master's trust is enormous.
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Speaker 1: Then he leaves. The servants with five and two invest immediately.
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Speaker 1: Both double the money. The master returns and speaks the
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Speaker 1: identical words to both. Well done, good and faithful servant.
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Speaker 1: You have been faithful with a few things. I will
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Speaker 1: put you in charge of many things. Come and share
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Speaker 1: your master's happiness. Same words. Different amounts. They are not promoted.
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Speaker 1: They are invited into their master's happiness. Fellowship. The relationship
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Speaker 1: has deepened. The third servant returns the talent exactly as
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Speaker 1: he received it, wrapped in cloth. Unused. His explanation is
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Speaker 1: one sentence. I was afraid. Not I was prudent. Not
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Speaker 1: I was cautious. I was afraid. There is something you
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Speaker 1: know you are supposed to be doing that you are
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Speaker 1: not doing. Something placed in you, a capacity, a calling,
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Speaker 1: a word. And instead of putting it to work, you
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Speaker 1: have been waiting for the right time, for the right conditions,
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Speaker 1: for the fear to go away. This parable names what
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Speaker 1: the waiting actually is. Now hear the honest word. Fear
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Speaker 1: has a particular texture when it wears the costume of wisdom.
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Speaker 1: It does not feel like fear. It feels like discernment,
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Speaker 1: like patience, like not rushing into something you are not
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Speaker 1: ready for. But underneath the reasonable language, there is a
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Speaker 1: picture of God, and in that picture, God is watching
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Speaker 1: for mistakes. If that is the picture, you will not attempt.
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Speaker 1: And you will call not attempting faithfulness, but the master
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Speaker 1: had already given the servant twenty years of wages before
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Speaker 1: he had done a single day of work. The servant's
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Speaker 1: fear was not based on who the master actually was.
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Speaker 1: It was based on a portrait he had constructed, and
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Speaker 1: that false portrait produced paralysis, which produced exactly the judgment
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Speaker 1: he feared. You cannot be faithful to a God you
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Speaker 1: are afraid of, and the window is still open. What
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Speaker 1: is buried can still be unburied. The Master has not
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Speaker 1: yet returned in the final sense. You are still in
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Speaker 1: the between time. Whatever was placed in your hands is
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Speaker 1: still in your hands. The question is what you are
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Speaker 1: going to do with it and which picture of the
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Speaker 1: Master you are going to trust while you decide. seven parables,
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Speaker 1: seven hiding places, and in every one Jesus leaves a
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Speaker 1: door open. So which story found you? Which one stopped
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Speaker 1: feeling like a story about somebody else and started feeling
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Speaker 1: like a mirror? Were you the older brother, the one
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Speaker 1: who felt grace becoming offensive the moment it was given
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Speaker 1: to someone who had not sacrificed as much as you?
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Speaker 1: Were you the rich man who passed the same suffering
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Speaker 1: at the same gate until the distance between seeing it
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Speaker 1: and doing something about it no longer troubled you? Were
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Speaker 1: you the servant who buried his talent, who called fear
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Speaker 1: wisdom and caution faithfulness? Or were you the Pharisee, so
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Speaker 1: certain you were speaking to God that you never noticed
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Speaker 1: you were only speaking to yourself? Maybe it was not
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Speaker 1: just one. because these parables were never given to help
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Speaker 1: you identify the worst person in the story. They were
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Speaker 1: given to make sure you do not miss yourself. Before
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Speaker 1: the son can finish his speech, the father runs toward him.
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Speaker 1: When the older brother refuses to enter, the father comes
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Speaker 1: out to meet him. Before the servant can repay an
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Speaker 1: impossible debt, the king cancels it. At the final hour,
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Speaker 1: The landowner goes back into the marketplace because he refuses
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Speaker 1: to leave people without hope. Grace is never waiting for
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Speaker 1: you to become worthy enough to enter. Grace is the
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Speaker 1: Father who comes looking for you while you are still
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Speaker 1: standing outside. So the question is not whether you have
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Speaker 1: heard these parables before. The question is, will you keep
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Speaker 1: using them to examine everyone else? Or will you finally
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Speaker 1: let one examine you? The Master will return, and every
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Speaker 1: account will be brought into the light. But right now,
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Speaker 1: the door is still open. If this helped you see
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Speaker 1: one of Jesus' stories in a new way, share it
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Speaker 1: with someone who may be standing outside the feast. If
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Speaker 1: you are new here, subscribe, and tell me in the comments,
38:10
Speaker 1: which one of these seven found you? I read every answer.
38:15
Speaker 1: If you want to go further than a single video,
38:18
Speaker 1: our membership is how you become part of this community.
38:22
Speaker 1: And if this made you want to see the whole
38:24
Speaker 1: story these seven parables come from, the video on your
38:28
Speaker 1: screen walks the complete New Testament, start to finish.